Two daughters said they remain in shock over what they discovered in the Kettering, Ohio, home of their estranged father.
What set out to be a journey to reconnect with family ended up with the discovery of skeletal remains in their father’s Kettering residence.
>> MORE: Kettering neighbor: ‘How long that body has been dead in that house?
Danielle Barry, 24, said she is the daughter of the property’s owner, Denny Barry, 82.
She called the situation worthy of a "Netflix documentary," as she revealed to the Dayton Daily News how the journey to visit her father as a way to say goodbye and mend fences turned out to be a "horror-filled nightmare."
Human remains were found on May 31 in the house and had been there for years, even as someone occupied the home, police said Wednesday.
The Montgomery County Coroner’s Office is still trying to determine the identification of the deceased, but the remains had been there for “years,” Coroner Kent Harshbarger said. He said there did not appear to be any skeletal trauma to the remains.
His office said in a statement on Thursday that there still had not been a positive identification made.
Danielle Barry said she does not know her father well, noting she moved to Iowa with her mother at age 8 “and pretty much I have never really talked to him again.”
Recently, “Some of his friends had called and said he was not doing well, so me and my husband drove to Kettering from New York to check on him,” she said.
Danielle Barry said she only learned three years ago that her father had another daughter, Lori Barry.
Lori Barry, who lives in Virginia, decided to bring her two daughters on May 31 for a family reunion of sorts in Kettering.
Danielle Barry said they found their estranged father bedridden with a tumor growing out of his chest and urine in bottles around his bed.
"There was mold everywhere, and it smelled disgusting," she said. "There was no food in the house, and the water had been shut off for weeks. He was laying in filth."
Danielle Barry said her family went to dinner, then came back to check on Barry, and that is when they discovered the remains.
Barry said that her husband Stefan Renton found the skeletal remains piled in a blanket in the rear bedroom of the house.
“Obviously, the person had been deceased for some period of time,” Kettering police Capt. Daniel Gangwer said Wednesday.
Kim Ritzert, whom Danielle Barry described as her godmother and “the ringleader of Denny and his friends,” explained that he was friendly with many people and would not harm anybody.
“I have known Denny since 1983,” she said. “He wouldn’t hurt anybody and hasn’t been in trouble for anything.”
Ritzert said that it is still a mystery to many how a body would be in the house for so long.
“Denny didn’t want people coming in the house,” she said, noting that many neighbors had said he had not been seen for weeks.
Danielle Barry said her father is in a Beavercreek nursing home, rehabbing, and the house has been condemned.
"This has been so crazy, like a Netflix documentary," she said. "I have more questions than answers."
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